Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Futurologistic

The late Gene Roddenberry said the purpose of science fiction was to portray a hopeful vision of the future, but I’m worried it’s creating a lot of false hope. Take the transporter in Star Trek. I can’t think of anything more wonderful that whizzing from A to B in a pulse of sub-space energy, but what are the odds of that ever happening? Even if it’s feasible in theory, you’ve got to wonder how the away team always ends up on a clean piece of ground, rather than treading on dog shit or gate-crashing the lair of some flesh-eating lizard. Ideally, you’d send an expendable peon to check out the place in advance, but that never seems to happen on the Enterprise. The phaser, on the other hand, is much closer to reality. We already have the laser, its rhyming stepbrother, and I was pleased to read about a new application in Canada. Students from Vancouver have developed an auto-firing laser, which zaps uppity geese who dare to plunder the crops of hard-pressed farmers. There’s no need to feel sorry for geese, who are the hooligans of the avian world, renowned for honking and flapping at anyone who attempts to reason with them. The laser does not injure them in any case. Rather than cooking the goose’s goose, it spooks the bird and makes it flee in panic. However, the most important advances in technology will probably be devices that no one ever predicted. Who, in the reign of Queen Victoria, would have dreamt that 21st-century humans would be relaxing in hot tubs and Jacuzzis? A bath used to be a monthly ordeal endured by gentlefolk to scrape off their befoulments with hard brushes and coal tar soap. Yet somehow this grievous tribulation was transformed into a sensual experience with massaging jets and swirling underwater vortices. Miraculous.A more recent example of an unforeseen invention is the straddling bus, which has never appeared in a sci fi movie. The Chinese are incredibly excited about it, because their own engineers designed it, and it does look very remarkable. It’s essentially a giant mobile conference room with sufficient space below for cars to drive right through. Impatient motorists will be able to pass safely underneath, instead of hooting their horns and attempting dangerous overtaking manoeuvres. There are humans, of course, who shun the blessings of modern technology. I suppose a jungle-dwelling ape like me should admire them, but in truth I view them with suspicion. It is not in the nature of man to eschew his creature comforts unless he is a religious hermit. I’ve heard stories about a human tribe called the Amish, who are said to draw water from wells and pluck their own chickens. All well and good, but aren’t they also a tourist attraction for visitors who want to chuckle at their quaint customs and silly clothes? As any gorilla knows, you can’t get into the tourism business without acquiring a taste for easy living. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Jacuzzis in their homes.